Amazing Grace: John Newton exemplified 'the great doctrine of love'
According to theologian Jim Packer, John Newton was ‘the friendliest, wisest, humblest and least pushy of the 18th -century evangelical leaders’. At a recent church history lecture by Dr Lesley Rowe, Leicestershire folk were also pleased to learn that Newton had a special place in his heart for the county and visited on several occasions.
Newton was motherless from the age of six, boarded at a harsh school from the age of eight, taken to sea at 11 and an accomplished blasphemer by age 12. He was press-ganged into the Navy, flogged, enslaved and, famously, became captain of a slave-trading ship.
history
Fighting slavery
Michael Haykin
Ownership, a recently published book by Sean McGever on the serious failings of some key 18th-century evangelicals, namely George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards with regard to the issue of slavery, has been a great reminder of the fact that our heroes from that era were human beings like ourselves – broken and bent. And yet, there were some, thank God, who were steadfast in their denunciation of both slavery and slave trade.
One such figure was Abraham Booth (1734–1806), who has appeared on a couple of earlier occasions in this column. He was widely admired within the Particular Baptist denomination, the Christian community among which he ministered for most of his life. Benjamin Beddome, the great Baptist hymnwriter of the 18th century, is said to have exclaimed: ‘Oh, that Abraham Booth’s God may be my God’. Andrew Fuller, another Baptist leader of that era, once described Booth as ‘the first counsellor’ of their denomination.
Disability History Month: The dark and hidden past of disability
It’s Disability History Month. This has happened every year from 16th November to 16th December since 2010.
Has your church ever done events around this, in the same way many do events around Black History Month?